Shawn Lankton Online

The fascinating thing about cars is how futile their entire apparatus is when sliding on wet roads. Last night, as I was driving home I turned a corner. I turned the wheel back and waited. It was immediately apparent that something was amiss. The car, which at this point should have been going straight, was now pointed completely opposite of the way it ought to. Its direction of travel, however, was pretty much right-on. The entire experience of spinning down a country road with a forward velocity of 40mph and an angular velocity of about a turn a second is so novel that it didn’t exactly register at first.

About the time that it started to sink in, I was thinking, “this is pretty awesome!” It was at just that moment when my cute little car went careening off of the road, into a ditch, along side of a tree, and over a sign (that coincidently enough decried that the road was winding). There must have been some kind of tree-snake festival occurring just when I arrived. I was just getting used to not spinning anymore when about three snakes fell onto my windshield! Needless to say, the first thing that came into my head was, “Snakes on a Car!”
Later that night, the cops came; we pulled my car out of the ditch; I searched through snake-infested underbrush for my side view mirror; I went home. Ah life can be an adventure.

This weekend I traveled to Stonington, CT to visit my uncle. He is the motivation behind my healthy diet choices. In fact he is working on a new website highlighting some of his research and experiences: harmonyearth.net. He is a great guy, and an excellent sailor… In fact, we spent the weekend on the water in his 14′ boat. Something about sailboats is romantic and poetic. Powerful and ancient. Harnessing nature to cut through the water as our ancestors have done for millennia. Slicing the air and sea faster than men can run. No motor, no complex cacophony of combustion. Just the wind, the sea, and a little bit of magic.